Glossary · Routing
Minimum Spend Requirement (MSR)
A minimum spend requirement is the amount you must charge to a new card within a set window to earn its sign-up bonus — e.g. $4,000 in the first three months.
Sign-up bonuses are usually worth far more than ongoing category earn, so concentrating spend to clear an open MSR temporarily outranks routing for everyday multipliers.
Pikt's router applies MSR gating: when a card has an active, unmet minimum-spend requirement, eligible spend is steered to that card — unless a live merchant or category offer would earn more incremental value.
Related terms
- Card Velocity — Card velocity is the pace at which you open new credit cards over a rolling window, which issuers use to approve or deny applications (for example, Chase's 5/24 rule).
- Reward Routing — Reward routing is the practice of automatically selecting, at the moment of purchase, the credit card in your wallet that earns the most value on that specific merchant and category.
- Category Multiplier — A category multiplier is the rate at which a card earns rewards in a given spending category — e.g. 4× points on dining or 6% back at U.S. supermarkets.